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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28896252">my heart on lockdown (you turned me around)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylomylo/pseuds/xylomylo'>xylomylo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>LOONA (Korea Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Compliant, F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:46:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,052</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28896252</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylomylo/pseuds/xylomylo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>but it doesn’t explain why she still feels sooyoung’s eyes on her back, or why the tiredness in her bones fails to translate into the same sleepiness that was sitting on her eyelids just ten minutes ago. </p><p>(or why jinsol eventually dreams of a smile soft on unblemished skin that somehow reminds her of the same warmth as being wrapped up in a thick blanket. just like the ones in the living room.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>165</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. hands in my pocket</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>my last brain cell has latched onto yvesoul and does not want to let go even though they are pretty much DEAD .</p><p>title from hero / heroine - boys like girls &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>it’s way past midnight. jinsol walks. waits. her footsteps are heavy. her eyelids are even heavier, and she blindly shuffles out of the elevator, firm grip on jungeun – who single handedly drags the both of them back to the dorm. the door opens easily, with jinsol barely registering the telltale click of the lock, and the next thing she knows is jungeun pushing her in before the door shuts behind them and then –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jungeun is gone. the warmth that came with her disappears, and jinsol finds herself standing in the doorway, in the middle of a pile of all their mismatched shoes. okay. she forces her eyes open a little wider, and regains her bearings. just a little more, and then she can pass out on her bed for the next twenty hours or so – </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“wow.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she looks up. it’s sooyoung, with her arms folded, gaze sharp and unyielding. it shouldn't be this unnerving, when the other girl is swaddled up in one of the fluffy blankets perpetually lying around in the living room, but it makes jinsol feel like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t have done. which doesn’t even make sense at all, because they don’t even know each other that well. when the other girl still doesn’t offer any explanation, jinsol snaps. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“what?” it comes out flat, and she has no energy left in her to care. jinsol kicks off her shoes. gives her body and mind at most one minute before she’s pretty sure they’ll both shut down, and looks at the floor of the living room – seven steps from where she’s standing at –  it doesn’t look so bad. her room is kind of far, and – </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“nothing.” sooyoung shakes her head. her arms fall to her sides, eyes clouding over. “just – your hair.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol blinks. “oh.” her fingers self-consciously find their way into her newly re-bleached hair, and twirl some of it. away from the flashing lights of the jacket photoshoots and the chaos that comes with filming, it looks… different. she’s never really had time to appreciate the colour, even though it’s been weeks or a month, even, other than the half-awake glances she steals at her own reflection in the hair salon every morning -</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“it suits you.” the corner of sooyoung’s lips curves upwards, by a fraction, and jinsol thinks it softens under the dim light of the hallway. the hazy drowsiness dissipates, with her vision clearing up slowly and surely. they’re supposedly the same age, but sooyoung looks nothing like it – there are no eyebags or dark circles tainting the other girl’s ivory skin, unlike the ones that threaten to swallow the apples of her own cheeks – she misses it. the life before debut. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>then there’s a crash somewhere. someone yells, and it’s enough to pull jinsol back into reality. they’ve never really talked, given the rushed circumstances of all their solo debuts and the company’s haphazard planning, so the awkwardness is enough for her to do a double take and reboot her brain for an escape.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“thanks,” jinsol mumbles, sheepish. “i’m gonna – um. sleep?” points to her room. when sooyoung doesn’t say anything else, again, she takes it as her cue to leave and shuffles across the wooden flooring. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>just like that, the moment is over. a part of her feels guilty for walking away, but she’s not really up for weather talk at three in the morning – conversations can always be started another day, jinsol reasons, with logic and all the common sense in the world, and wills herself to forget it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but it doesn’t explain why she still feels sooyoung’s eyes on her back, or why the tiredness in her bones fails to translate into the same sleepiness that was sitting on her eyelids just ten minutes ago. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(or why jinsol eventually dreams of a smile soft on unblemished skin that somehow reminds her of the same warmth as being wrapped up in a thick blanket. just like the ones in the living room.)</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>the night is always quiet. out of their current lineup, jinsol doesn’t think anyone else sleeps as late as she does – most of the girls are early risers, so she gets her alone time in the form of occupying the entire living room for a good few hours or so. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>until their newest addition. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung is sitting on the couch. according to yerim, it’s only been a few days since she’s moved in. but looking at the way the other girl manhandles the tv remote, it’s as though she’s already fully integrated into living here – the cheap thing is battered and unresponsive and jinsol knows they should really get a new one. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>that, and it’s like her living habits are so ordinary that jinsol doesn’t even notice them – until now. or rather, last night (morning). some of it gets pulled up into the forefront of her memories, and jinsol cringes. but today is a new day, and as much as she dislikes having her alone time interrupted, she thinks about the impending future as a group and pushes forward. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“can’t sleep?” jinsol offers. it’s a legitimate concern, considering that it's currently two in the morning, and sooyoung probably has practice lined up all the way to her solo debut date. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the other girl shakes her head. “not really. my sleep schedule is kinda fucked.” she yanks away the blanket on the other side of the couch, and jinsol laughs. crosses the space in between them to take the empty seat. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“plus, i like the night,” sooyoung continues. “it’s so peaceful, isn’t it?” she turns to jinsol, and jinsol is now close enough to see how much sooyoung means it. her eyes light up like a newly discovered constellation jinsol wants to map out. the rest of her words don’t register, because sooyoung is surprisingly talkative and jinsol is too distracted by the way the light in their living room bends to cradle the edges of her cheekbones, or the way it makes the freckles dusting her face look like a marked trail that has yet to be followed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>so when sooyoung beams at her expectantly, seemingly waiting for a reaction of sorts, jinsol releases the breath she didn’t know she was holding, and returns the smile with one of her own. they fall into a comfortable silence, and jinsol learns that it’s not too bad to have someone to share the night with, after all.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>they make their debut as a twelve-membered group. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol cries right after. jungeun too. most of them do, as they huddle in a circle after their very first live performance. haseul says something. heejin is to her left. yerim is physically vibrating. she takes all of it in, slowly; it’s nothing too dramatic – just their future cemented in a concrete beginning. hours of mindless practice, unit promotions, all materialising into something real – everyone is happy. she’s happy. excited, even, for the start of a new journey.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>her eyes meet sooyoung’s. she’s at the other side of the circle, stuck between jiwoo and chaewon, long black hair straightened to perfection. her eyes are wet and glossy, and jinsol knows her own are probably the same. but the other girl stares, sticky gaze pulling her in for no reason at all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it’s new. but also familiar since they’re always in close proximity, and jinsol is still riding the high of their first stage. so she grins, big and contagious, embracing the adrenaline rush that comes with seeing sooyoung smile. it’s great. it makes her want to run ten miles without stopping, and somersault off a cliff in the best way possible, with the wind in her hair.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>something in her chest slides into place. it’s small and unnoticeable, and it stays. jinsol doesn’t tear her eyes away. not until their huddle disperses, and someone bumps into her – it’s long enough for her to catch sooyoung’s eyes dissolving into something like stardust, and it’s really pretty. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>really, really pretty. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>hyejoo buys jiwoo a set of pajamas. it covers way too little skin, and jiwoo runs from it like it's the plague. everyone else thinks it's the funniest thing in the world and spectates passively, because hyejoo won’t stop chasing jiwoo down to make her wear it, and everything about the situation is hilarious. jinsol finds herself doubled over in laughter – it's a typical day at the dorm.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“give it to someone else,” jungeun steps in. the ever reliable problem solver. jiwoo shrieks from her place in jungeun’s embrace as hyejoo dangles the offending garment in front of them, and jinsol snatches it away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“oh hey, it’s not that bad,” she laughs. it’s a much calmer one than the hysterics they were all dying in a few minutes ago, and hyejoo finally retreats – only because jiwoo’s face is as red as it gets. “which one of us would wear this?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>this, meaning the scandalous one piece that jinsol would never have imagined she would be seeing in their dorm. to make things worse, it’s bright red, and horribly eye-catching. just like -</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“sooyoung!” jinsol flings it at her, cheshire grin in place. “i think this would look nice on you, miss hot body.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung catches it easily. lifts an eyebrow at the skimpy pajamas. jinsol isn’t wrong, she knows. sooyoung has the hottest body out of all of them, courtesy of her god-like metabolism that doesn't allow her to gain any weight (only at the right places), and it’s honestly a little distracting during practices or whatnot, whenever sooyoung herself decides to capitalise on it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“you’d like that, wouldn’t you,” sooyoung waggles her eyebrows suggestively. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol’s brain decides to malfunction right there and then, as she struggles to find a witty comeback that wouldn’t reveal how much of the truth it actually is – she would easily bet her entire savings account that sooyoung will pull it off as part of a cover of some magazine, because sooyoung is born for the camera, bringing everything she models for to life – but then sooyoung starts draping the cloth over her body like she’s seriously considering wearing it for a second, and jinsol does her best to shake the image out of her head. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“what about you?” sooyoung challenges suddenly. “didn’t you say you made abs?” they're seated close enough for jinsol to see sooyoung’s eyes twinkle, and it’s all the warning she gets before sooyoung’s hand shoots out, reaching for said abs – jinsol curls into herself in defence, and bats the hand away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she pouts. “it’s a secret.” jinsol grabs one of the throw pillows lying on the ground, and hugs it tightly. “i’ll show it when it’s ready.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>then jungeun wrinkles her nose, and says something about how </span>
  <em>
    <span>no one wants to see it</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and jinsol goes for her neck immediately – the chaos resumes, like it always does, one way or another.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>her scalp feels lighter today. it must be her hair follicles celebrating the new dye used – no more bleach. at least not for the next year or so, according to their hair stylist, and jinsol is </span>
  <em>
    <span>glad</span>
  </em>
  <span>. no more frying of her hair. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it's part of the comeback preparations, of course, but jinsol will embrace change with an open mind. especially if it involves fewer trips to the hair salon, and more time to do other things. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the dorm is surprisingly empty today. it’s a rare sight, and she’s all ready to enjoy a night of peace and quiet. there are three boxes of gundams at the corner of her room, and okay. maybe it’s time to unwind the best way she knows how. her shoes are kicked off in a newfound anticipation for eleven hours of uninterrupted concentration, even though it seems like a long stretch with the number of people sharing a living room –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“wow.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung is there in the living room, lying across the sofa like she owns the place. she sits up immediately, eyes widening, and jinsol only raises an eyebrow at the seemingly only other occupant. “what?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“your hair.” sooyoung says. points at the now black locks framing her face, and jinsol rakes her fingers through them. they’re softer now – less dry, and definitely going to be a whole lot easier to manage – “it suits you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol stares at the strands contrasting against her palm, before flicking them behind her shoulder. chuckles at the deja vu. it’s been three years. “are you going to tell me that every time i dye my hair?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung blinks. returns the stare for the entirety of a second, like she’s just remembered something, before snorting. rolls her eyes, but the smile that breaks out after tells jinsol that there’s no bite behind her next words. “why not? if i don’t say it, who will?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it’s easier, now. they’ve settled into a closeness that can be defined by their nocturnal habits and same age, with a mutual inclination to tease everyone else whenever possible. in between that matrix also lies a gradual realisation of the similarities and differences between them – where sooyoung pushes, jinsol pulls; where sooyoung confronts, jinsol hides. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(and that, jinsol will realise later, is where the problem begins.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“the fans,” jinsol preens. “or literally anyone else who lives in this apartment.” tilts her chin up as if to prove a point. “having the same hairstyle for three years is kinda boring, don’t you think?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she drops her bag on the floor beside the coffee table. watches as sooyoung eyes her with something narrow and calculative. jinsol feels her heart starting to pound really fast. weird. maybe it's the coffee she’d downed earlier in her rush to leave the hair salon.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“hm,” is all the other girl says, before she blinks. it disappears into nothing. her eyes return to their hazelnut calmness, and jinsol is left to wonder if she was staring a little too hard, as the conversation moves on to something else. something forgettable.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>like her new gundams. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>the next day, sooyoung comes back with half of her hair chopped off. the members' reactions are extreme enough for jinsol to blend quietly into the background, taking in the curled ends of the other girl’s now shoulder-length hair.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“you like it?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol looks up – of course sooyoung catches her staring. she fights the red that threatens to flush across her cheeks. “of course.” she says, keeping her voice neutral. “you always look good.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>heejin mimes barfing. yerim cringes visibly and comments about her greasiness. but she pays them both no mind, because something in sooyoung’s gaze sharpens oddly and something in jinsol’s chest squeezes in return. it’s weird, and she feels it again – the sudden hyper awareness of everything, like three shots of espresso straight into her veins. she squints. zooms in on sooyoung’s cheeks, and they look a little pink. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>pink is a good colour on sooyoung. especially when the other girl smiles like nothing happened, despite the lacking eye contact, which shouldn’t be a problem. jiwoo squeals like she always does, going off on a tangent about how they should all try going for radical changes in life, and jinsol is just about to continue her mindless scrolling on her phone when she catches chaewon looking at her with a crease in her eyebrows.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she cocks her head questioningly. meets the unnecessarily intense gaze with her own, just in time for her to see chaewon’s focus shifting over to sooyoung, who is still fending off jiwoo’s grabby hands. it stays there, lingering, as if the other girl is trying to figure out something – until it finally, finally returns back to jinsol.</span>
</p><p> </p><p><span>jinsol squints again. her eyesight must surely be deteriorating, because chaewon is wearing her accomplished</span> <span>look. the same one she always has on when she slots the final jigsaw into her thousand piece puzzle, with her shoulders puffed up like she’s just found out a huge secret. like the elixir of life. </span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but just as she’s about to open her mouth and make a jab about the other girl’s unibrow, chaewon places a hand on her knee, as if halting everything. it works. jinsol‘s train of thought goes to shit, and chaewon walks away. just like that.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>huh.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>they get their first win. and by default, a day off.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol thinks it’s one of the things she will never forget – the confetti on stage; the rush of emotions gripping her chest; holding the trophy for the first time; a collective sigh of relief, when it finally, finally feels like all their hard work was worth something -</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>and then there was sooyoung. sooyoung, who powered through their thank you speech before breaking down gracefully behind her hair, tears reflecting a piece of her own happiness. when their eyes had met, briefly, in the middle of the encore, jinsol remembers her own breath hitching at the glitter in the other girl’s eyes, before she had rushed over with a hug of her own.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it’s still there now, as they gather in the living room – which means that it couldn't have been from the fancy stage lights or the coloured lenses they wear during performances. but jinsol hasn’t been able to unsee it, even though it's been hours; even after sitting through an entire work party, and a very elaborate speech from their ceo; even now, with sooyoung next to her, looking like she’s on top of the world, twisting open yet another soju bottle.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it makes no sense at all. because the light in the living room isn't that bright, and even if it is – is it possible for eyes to sparkle like that? to form an illusion with the entire spectrum of colour? sooyoung has dark brown eyes. it’s a fact on her profile that jinsol tries, again and again, to reason with her slowly fading sanity.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but no. when sooyoung turns to her and raises her shot glass, jinsol thinks she might be seriously colourblind. because she knows that if she squints, there might be flecks of gold, now, in sooyoung’s eyes, and they seem to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>moving </span>
  </em>
  <span>on their own. or to the rhythm of something unique to the other girl alone, and it makes her look –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“drink!” sooyoung clinks their glasses together, and okay. jinsol drinks. feels the familiar burn down her throat. it's their own after party, and alcohol is, of course, a necessity. her skin is already buzzing from it, and the empty bottles in front of them may be the actual reason behind her sudden scrutiny of sooyoung’s eyes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but the atmosphere is still festive from their previous celebration; a few rounds of drinking games are enough for jinsol to forget her temporary obsession. she dives into it wholeheartedly – they don’t get to let loose as often as they want to because of unspoken obligations, so of course they would go hard. with every shot jinsol takes, the weight underneath her shoulders slips away until she’s as light as a feather and everything is funny. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she ends up lying on the ground. some time passes, she’s sure, because it’s suddenly quieter. but gravity is too strong a force to deal with for now, and jinsol can’t be bothered to get up. the rug is warm, and if she stretches her foot just a little further she’ll be in reach of the blanket on the sofa –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it falls onto her, unceremoniously. like she’d willed it to. but with it is a familiar warmth that crushes jinsol momentarily, and she finds herself with a mouthful of hair. her vision clears with a few rapid blinks, and there it is again: sooyoung’s unicorn eyes. what the hell.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“why do you keep looking at me like that today?” sooyoung grunts, pushing herself off. but not completely, jinsol notes, even though most of her attention falls on the now green flecks in the other girl’s eyes. “don’t think i haven’t noticed.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol bites her lip. maybe she really needs to get her vision checked. it’s embarrassing to admit, because sooyoung might think she’s gone crazy and judge the shit out of her. and also, she hates wearing glasses. but alcohol makes everything seem easier, and so the words slip out:</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“your eyes. they have colours in them. like, every single colour,” jinsol spills, mouth on autopilot. “they’re really pretty.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>something flashes across sooyoung’s face. if they weren’t this close, jinsol thinks she might have missed it – but the other girl only moves closer. her weight is mostly back on jinsol, and jinsol is so, so warm, and sooyoung’s eyes are really pretty. really.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“really,” sooyoung breathes. the light behind her frames her face perfectly, as it would in any other photoshoot, and jinsol </span>
  <em>
    <span>stops</span>
  </em>
  <span>. something else pulls her in, from her peripheral – it’s red, finally, something that assures her that she is very much not colourblind, but –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it’s sooyoung’s lipstick. it’s smudged at the corners, probably from the drinking. it fills her entire line of sight, and jinsol’s ribs are suddenly too small for her chest. there is a rush of something else that pushes her stomach down, and it coils hotly in between her legs. curiosity takes over when sooyoung doesn’t move away. like how she never backs away from a challenge – jinsol swipes a thumb over the smudge, sooyoung’s eyes following her every move.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung is soft. jinsol feels like she would know, somehow. but now she does, and her fingertips burn with the anticipation of having sooyoung just an inch away from her. the red fills her thoughts with nothing but sooyoung, and jinsol grips onto sooyoung’s hoodie, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>pulls </span>
  </em>
  <span>–</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung is soft. jinsol already knows. but her lips are pillowy, and when sooyoung tenses up, stiff as a rock, jinsol realises, amidst the alcohol haze that something is wrong.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“i’m sorry,” jinsol turns away. there is not much room for escape when she’s still trapped on the floor. the embarrassment starts trickling in when she breathes, even with her body feeling a mile away from her; the oxygen clears her mind just so, and jinsol starts to plan her next diplomatic move in which she would ideally still be living here –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“don’t be.” the other girl breaks the silence. her eyes shine with an intensity jinsol recognises belatedly, the previously green flakes in them now a fire red. jinsol finds both her wrists in an iron grip, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>pushes </span>
  </em>
  <span>–</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung is soft. jinsol will remember. but her lips are now rough cut rubies that slice into her own hesitation. it’s enough for jinsol to forget her own name, because sooyoung kisses her like she doesn’t need to know it. it kindles an inferno that rips through her entire being, and jinsol feels alive. like she’s being reborn. sooyoung’s touches are scalding, coaxing waves and waves of heat that make her toes curl, and jinsol thinks she makes a noise at the back of her throat.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but then it’s gone, and it’s suddenly cold. her vision swims, and her eyes can’t seem to stay open any longer. it's like the alcohol gods ringing the timer on her consciousness, coming to collect it for the night. jinsol loses the fight, of course, and the last she remembers is being covered in something warm and fluffy before everything goes black.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>a few hours later, jinsol wakes up with a huge headache, a missing button on her blouse, and a gap in her memory.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(and also, a sinking dread in her chest.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>hyunjin is already awake when jinsol enters their shared room. it’s still mostly dark, but the lamp at her bedside allows her to at least make out the frown on the other girl’s face, and something that looks a little like apprehension. but hyunjin excels at masking her emotions, and it all gets replaced by blatant amusement at jinsol’s hungover state.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“you look like shit, unnie,” hyunjin snorts, pulling on her socks. she’s dressed for her morning workout, and jinsol will never understand the idea of exercising during the most ungodly hours of the night (morning).</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“you’re not so much better yourself,” jinsol snipes. nothing is nice when there are tiny gremlins playing whack-a-mole with the backs of your eyeballs. every step to her bed is lined in regret. but then hyunjin’s pout is visible even through her hungover haze, and jinsol softens. opens her mouth to say something else – </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“there’s something on your chin.” hyunjin points out. looks away all of a sudden, like she wasn’t supposed to see it, and jinsol frowns. bends down to examine her reflection in the mirror.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> it’s… a lipstick smudge? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she rubs it away hastily. stares at her reddened fingers, as her mind tries to come up with possible explanations that don’t point to the obvious, because she’s pretty sure that’s not possible since she hasn’t left the dorm since. her head throbs in protest, and she hisses in pain, and hyunjin is suddenly at her side.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“get some rest, unnie,” there is a firm arm guiding her to her bed, and okay. yes. sleep. that she can most definitely do. everything else can wait.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>things get weird. it’s times like these when jinsol hates how intuitive she is, because why else would she notice things that other people normally don’t? like how sooyoung starts sleeping earlier, all of a sudden. or how sooyoung doesn’t seem to be around anymore. not around her, at least.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she doesn’t push. sooyoung’s always been the networking queen among them, anyway. they’re also a large group to begin with, and keeping track of everyone is hard. but something behind her consciousness nags at the fact that this – whatever this is – only started happening after that fateful night of drinking – the one she remembers nothing of, other than her having a blast on their living room floor. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the rainbow eye bullshit also stops. or rather, jinsol has no way to verify it. at least not anymore, since sooyoung’s not even around for her to find out. what she has now are side glimpses of the other girl, and from the distance, they seem… hard. dark, and untelling, and jinsol chalks it all up to her own acid trip that came with their first win. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she’s probably thinking too much. there’s nothing to worry about anyway – not when hyejoo sends yet another jungeun meme to their group chat, and yerim slaps her shoulder as they dissolve into yet another fit of giggles.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>everything is fine.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>everything is apparently, not fine.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“did something happen?” chaewon asks, out of nowhere. it’s directed at no one in particular, but since it's just the two of them at this corner of the practice room, jinsol bites the bait.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“what do you mean?” she puts her phone down. her brows furrow. they’re waiting for practice to start, and some of the members have yet to arrive. unofficial promotions means more individual schedules and a tougher compromise on team-related activities – while she is happy to have more down time, jinsol is slow to realise that being left to her own thoughts for a longer period of time puts her at risk of unnecessary overthinking. and not only herself, it seems, if chaewon’s pointed look is anything to go by.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the universe has impeccable timing. the door opens before jinsol can get any more clarity. sooyoung enters, in all her crop top glory, and jinsol looks. gets distracted by the lines of the other girl’s abdomen that runs along the entire length of her side, only to disappear into –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“stop staring,” chaewon pinches her thigh. jinsol yelps in pain, fighting down the urge to retaliate. but the damage is done, because sooyoung turns to them mid-greeting and freezes for less than a second – jinsol doesn’t miss the way her smile drops.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>wow. it disappears as quickly as it had come, because jiwoo’s barrelling across the room to hug sooyoung, and chaewon is shaking her head and drawing apologetic circles around the now red skin on jinsol’s thigh. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“what happened?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>there is no more running away – not when a third party is privy to what she thought was her eccentric overthinking. it’s all the confirmation she needs to prove that she's right, after all, and jinsol sighs, head suddenly heavy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“i don’t know.” </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“you’re avoiding me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it’s not a question. jinsol kicks the studio door shut. stands in front of it with her arms folded, effectively blocking the only way out. then locks her own legs so she can’t chicken out – not when the coffee in her veins seems to have activated her flight instincts. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung is startled. looks away. her hesitation gives jinsol a few seconds to ready her words, thoughts, and really look at sooyoung – the circles under her eyes seem to have darkened, and the hole in her ripped jeans is larger than the last time jinsol remembers seeing it – which was about two weeks ago, before sooyoung started to pretend that jinsol doesn’t exist.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“no?” the other girl drops her pencil. her face is now arranged into picture perfect nonchalance, and jinsol wants to scoff. of course. like hyunjin, sooyoung’s always been able to slap on a mask faster than anyone can blink, and it’s one of the reasons why she always does well on camera. her eyes are their usual brown. but today, they’re shuttered and opaque and foreign and jinsol has no idea what is happening, other than her drawing her own conclusion that the rainbow eye bullshit was purely a figment of her own imagination. “why would i do that?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol stares. clenches her fist. sooyoung must know how hard it is for her to be here, because jinsol isn’t wired to fight. she’d gladly take a step back and let things happen on their own – unlike sooyoung, confrontation is not her thing, and never will be. it’s one of the main differences in their personalities, and the fact that sooyoung is making things difficult for her gets her blood boiling.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“stop lying,” jinsol steps forward. grits her teeth. “i know it.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“know what?” sooyoung raises her voice. stands up. they’re supposedly the same height, but the action makes jinsol’s knees turn into jelly and her need to run skyrockets. because sooyoung is unrelenting and assertive and maybe jinsol is starting to regret this. “just because i haven’t been around you lately? i was </span>
  <em>
    <span>busy</span>
  </em>
  <span>, jinsol.” the other girl gestures to the mess on the studio table.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>well. now jinsol looks like an idiot. but she knows she’s right. because there is a waver in sooyoung’s eyes that makes her want to say something else – it's the prelude to the locking of her jaw, as though screwing it shut before the other girl could say anything else. it’s a whole lot of layers to peel away, but somehow jinsol recognises the most important thing of them all: the unwillingness to share –  it’s enough to extinguish the anger that was beginning to sharpen her next words.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“okay,” she says. she’s clearly overstepped boundaries. “sorry to disturb, then.” jinsol ignores the way something underneath her ribcage twists painfully, squeezing out all her courage. from afar, sooyoung is all sharp lines and edges. jinsol has seen enough to know that it’s all just a facade, but being on the receiving end of such hostility doesn’t mean it hurts any less. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>so jinsol takes it in stride. fights the tears already welling up in her eyes. her vision of sooyoung blurs, and jinsol uses her last bits of false bravado to leave with her head held high – there will be no more weakness shown. especially to sooyoung.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the hallway is quiet. it leaves her to drown in her thoughts, as she tries to mend her wounded pride and make sense of whatever the hell just happened.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>summer leaves with slow sticky footsteps jinsol is sure she will not miss. heat is her worst enemy, and as the weather turns colder there’s the ever ready excuse to be extra touchy and clingy to stay warm. it’s the only hypocritical trait she will embrace about herself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it's how she likes to show her affection anyway. chaewon hates it, but there’s only so much space on the couch they have unofficially claimed as their late night hangout spot, and jinsol loves cuddling. sooyoung, on the other hand, gives back as much as she gets, and – </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>oh.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“where’s sooyoung?” jinsol asks. then regrets it immediately, because she should have known better. they haven’t spoken since the confrontation, and it in a way has already set the tone for the next few weeks, even, and the sympathetic gaze chaewon sends her does not help at all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“asleep,” the other girl is careful. “maybe she’s just tired.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the disappointment that washes over jinsol fills her lungs. it’s thick and uncomfortable and has absolutely no place being there, bitter and cloying and taking up the space that would have already been occupied with sooyoung’s shampoo after pressing her face into the crook of the other girl’s neck.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it’s so stupid. holding sooyoung to an unspoken obligation of something jinsol thought could be considered </span>
  <em>
    <span>theirs </span>
  </em>
  <span>is ridiculous and selfish – sooyoung is free to do what she wants, and in no way will she be controlling and demanding and attaching unnecessary meaning to things that never needed them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>chaewon squeezes her hand. it hurts, but it's nothing compared to the jagged reality of expectations sawing into her chest. up, down, with every breath she takes. maybe this will be the final straw, and maybe it’s time for her to start accepting things as they are. that some mountains can never be moved no matter how hard you chip at them, because they’re just fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>immovable</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol snuggles a little closer. reaches for the tv remote. on any other day, chaewon would put up a good fight. today it falls into her hand easily, and she flips the channels to the one drama that has taken the entire nation by storm. lets herself get sucked into an hour’s worth of plot twists, and wonders what it would be like to lose a part of her memory. willingly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>just like the female lead did. it would be so, so easy to hit the reset button on things that didn't work out; that wouldn't have, no matter how hard they were forced to.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>for things that weren’t meant to be.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>they get busier. jinsol forgets, because the emptiness is filled up easily by schedules and vocal practices and the other girls, of course. life goes on, and time waits for no one.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>they’re filming a vlive today. something about the second episode of their bowling shenanigans, and jinsol is lowkey excited – even though games are clearly not her forte, it’s always fun watching how competitive they all get. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung leads the broadcast, as usual. they split themselves into teams, and by some otherworldly stroke of luck they end up in the same team – jinsol stares at her own open palm, and then at sooyoung’s, and bites back a scoff. it’s fine. she can remain professional. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but then the seats are pretty cramped at the back, and there’s too many of them, and sooyoung has bumped into her shoulder too many times for her to count, and jinsol finds herself pulled taut and ready to snap –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“um,” heejin starts, painfully oblivious. “are you guys fighting or something?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>their lane goes quiet. too quiet, until heejin makes to open her mouth and say something else, again, something that will probably make jinsol want to throw herself down the stairs. but hyunjin elbows heejin just in time, to which heejin yells in pain, and sooyoung – </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“i don’t know, you ask her.” sooyoung bristles, picking invisible lint off her jeans. it’s said quietly enough that only people in their tiny huddle can hear it, but it’s so loaded it strikes the flint lying underneath jinsol’s skin. the anger rushes through her veins, propelling her forward and jinsol thinks she has never moved so quickly; standing up, she raises her arm, ready to strike. to do something, anything that will make the rage in her chest visible –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“there is a camera one meter away from all of us,” sooyoung grits out slowly, like there’s nothing more she wants to say. “if you want to get angry, do it </span>
  <em>
    <span>later</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol sits down. retracts her hand. swallows the rest of her words, along with the tears that burn the corners of her eye. because yes, she can, and will be a professional. this is a broadcast, she reminds herself, and faking a smile for the next half hour isn’t that difficult – there are worse things she can think of, and all of them involve the girl on her right. who, hasn’t looked her way ever since, and okay. she’s fine with that. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she doesn’t miss how hyunjin makes sure to step on sooyoung’s shoes every chance she gets.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>autumn comes, lukewarm like a lover’s embrace she never wants to be free of. there is beauty in admiring the amber leaves of a tree, in the way they always seem rich and full of life, and never ready to fall.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but they do. slowly and surely, like the passing of time. quiet and gentle, like the beating of her heart. like the stretched out silence between them, over a shared acknowledgement of the unspoken. sooyoung’s lips curve up slowly, and there is nothing stopping jinsol’s own from doing the same. in the middle of it all, they are acquaintances, groupmates, and friends.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“pretty,” she teases, mindful of the staff hovering around them, with a camera in hand. probably for the next episode of loona tv, she thinks. the truth hurts, because sooyoung has always looked good in everything and anything. the khaki coat on her shoulders threatens to swallow her skinny frame, but jinsol thinks that there is a fierceness exuded somewhere along the soft edges of the other girl. the same one that no longer lets her in.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung takes it in stride. “i know,” she twirls around playfully. laughs, and jinsol’s heart hardens at the sound of it. she grins. rolls her eyes in affection, and soaks all of it in – the easygoing banter, the other girl’s effortless beauty – she wonders what it would be like to have all of it in the palm of her hand. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the staff member leaves. the bubble bursts, and jinsol drops her smile. strangely, sooyoung doesn’t. it shouldn’t matter anymore, but jinsol cannot bring herself to move away like she usually would; like she should. the breeze that passes them ruffles the ends of sooyoung’s coat, and musses up her hair, and jinsol’s throat closes up dangerously – the evening sun envelopes sooyoung in a backlit glow that warms the deepest parts of jinsol’s chest, a permanence that seems to grow even now, because sooyoung is there, and all jinsol can have is fleeting moments like these.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>and she takes them willingly. scrapes them off the ground and counts each and every one like the beggar she has learnt to be, living off them to alleviate the addiction she can’t seem to rid herself of. there are mistakes where lessons are never learnt from, because the price paid is worth so much more than the dull pain sitting at the bottom of her ribs, and jinsol resigns herself to the fact that sooyoung will always be one of them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>so she smiles, again. settles into the bought reality of their shoot today, and buries herself into the kaleidoscope that she always manages to find in sooyoung’s eyes.   </span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. head in a cloud</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hsy pours milk before cereal everyone look away</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>impulse control has always been her forte. sooyoung’s two hundred and fifty percent sure she’s the kid who would wait for the second marshmallow, because it’s just ten minutes, and it’s not like she has anything else to do when she’s trapped in a room under the watchful eyes of an underpaid researcher who probably wants to go home as much as she does. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>hypothetically, of course. in this context – all she had to do was sit and wait out jinsol’s weird staring, because making a move on your teammate, drunk or not, is unethical on so many levels she doesn’t even want to begin thinking about. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but jinsol had kissed her, and then looked at her with eyes so liquid – what was she supposed to do? not kiss her back? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung stares, horrified, at her own reflection in the bathroom. her lips are slightly swollen, red bleeding out messily past the side of her mouth. they still tingle, with the leftover adrenaline pumping in her veins from all her self control going to shit. it felt good, acting on a whim – but not so much now, when she still feels the heat of jinsol’s skin on hers, and the fact that sooyoung </span>
  <em>
    <span>cannot </span>
  </em>
  <span>do anything about it shocks her into an ice cold realisation.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>shit. shit shit shit.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she rips out a wet wipe. scrubs away all evidence of what should probably remain as an untouched memory, until her lips tingle with something like a deterring ache. never again. things that are too good to be true are, well, usually just that. god. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>her eyes fall to the button she’d picked up earlier, after tucking jinsol in. it sits on the countertop, in-between her night cream and sunblock, and sooyoung wills it to disappear. closes her eyes. takes a deep breath, keeping the air in her lungs for as long as she can. then opens one eye, slowly, to peek –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it’s still there. of course. she sighs. it’s just one problem after another, now. she shouldn’t have picked it up. but if she didn’t, jinsol probably would, and – what if jinsol remembers? what if jinsol remembers, and actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants </span>
  </em>
  <span>her, sober?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> no no no. that can’t be possible. she’s just – her. sooyoung shakes her head. digs her fingers into the sides of the sink, a firm grasp on reality, and the pain pressing at her fingertips dissociates the bits and pieces of the fantasy that she’d almost believed, filed away into the recesses of her mind where it should be forgotten, forever. it’s too dangerous.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>her heartbeat evens out. sooyoung takes one last look at the girl staring back at her in the mirror. a stranger, carved out with the necessary indentations for self-preservation. picks up the button, before leaving, with her resolve hardened and her lips sealed shut. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>when sooyoung had decided to sign seven years of her life away to be an idol, the last thing she would have expected was to make friends. her first day in the company already proved otherwise, because she’d managed to meet talented kids around her age who were so </span>
  <em>
    <span>nice </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>friendly </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>pretty. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she went in ready to fight tooth and nail to debut, and somehow ended up a part of a group with the sweetest girls she’s ever met. getting to know how they worked took some time, with eleven other personalities waiting to be discovered, and by the end of a year sooyoung had safely concluded that she’s got most of them figured out.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>well, except one - jung jinsol: so pretty and talented, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>so</span>
  </em>
  <span> insecure. something does not add up, even now, years later. the other girl is eye-catching everywhere she goes, and in everything she does - like today’s stage. they’re huddled up in front of the tv, monitoring like they always do, when jungeun’s butter fingers accidentally press something that minimises the video, and some of the comments come into view.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung narrows her eyes. haters will always be haters. that she knows, but it doesn’t make it any less hurtful reading things that no one should. most of them are just groundless accusations from keyboard warriors that have nothing better to do –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the damage has been done. jinsol’s jaw tenses. sooyoung itches to run her thumb along the angled edge and tell her it’s not true. to tell her, personally, how pretty she is – how her eyes are always the first sooyoung looks for in any of their group shots, just to see the way she brings out different emotions, and that she never manages to leave sooyoung’s mind for long. or how stable her live singing is – one of the things that sooyoung is always jealous of, a voice that stands out, strong and powerful.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>or how talented she is, and how jinsol should look at the mirror more often, and invalidate each and every one of her insecurities because they have absolutely no credibility –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“don’t listen to them, unnie,” jungeun beats her to it. closes the comments section. resumes the video. jinsol shakes her head in a flimsy reassurance, but her shoulders hunch in a little more and sooyoung knows that jinsol will go to sleep thinking about how pitchy her voice can get, and how her dance lines aren’t that pretty, and how far from perfect she is. it irks her, because it’s so stupid, and how can someone as observant and smart as jinsol be so blind?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung doesn’t see it. she thinks she never will. it’s something she can never comprehend, no matter how hard she tries – like milk before cereal. watching jinsol crumble under her own self-doubt is painful, because she’s so much more than that. but they’ve been around each other long enough to know when not to push, and this is something sooyoung knows she cannot poke her nose in, even though jungeun’s hand on jinsol’s is already disabling jinsol’s defense mechanism; the one that involves her pushing everyone away. it’s unfair. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the monitoring continues in silence, until jungeun declares that it’s bedtime, and the other girls start retiring to their rooms because it’s getting late, and they have an early schedule tomorrow. uncharacteristically, sooyoung gets up, even though she won’t be sleeping anytime soon – she feels chaewon’s eyes burning into her back, but this is one of the many consequences of her actions she has to deal with, anyway, and it’s no big deal. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>not when she knows chaewon gives better hugs than she does, even though she looks like she hates anything that requires any form of skinship, or how jungeun will always be there to put the broken pieces of jinsol together, in ways that sooyoung knows she can never be. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“wasn’t that a little too much?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung is too tired to be surprised. hyunjin being awake at two in the morning sets off a tiny alarm at the back of her mind – it’s too far away to cause any actual panic to settle in her bones, so sooyoung mostly just closes the fridge door and waits for whatever that is about to happen.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>hyunjin usually sleeps before twelve – a religious adherence to the infamous kim jungeun sleep schedule, and wakes up at six for her morning jog, a mentally challenging feat sooyoung will never subject herself to. the fact that the other girl is not in bed right now and standing a foot away from her, tells sooyoung that the next few moments will be something she does not want to face sober. but her soju stash is buried underneath the trusty floorboard in her room, and they are nowhere near –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“what?” sooyoung holds her ground. hyunjin’s face is blank, but sooyoung knows better than to believe it. the other girl is incredibly cryptic about her emotions, and never shows more than she wants to. it always pays to be careful. sooyoung understands. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“the broadcast today, at the bowling alley,” hyunjin steps forward. slams her mug down on the kitchen counter. sooyoung winces at the sound. “what was that about?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> sooyoung purses her lips together. lifts both her hands up, as though in surrender. “i was just joking.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she really was. in hindsight, it wasn’t her wisest move, because it only served to reveal their weird awkward relationship to the rest of the girls, and also made things difficult for everyone – hyunjin took jinsol’s side almost immediately, and while sooyoung knows she can’t fault the other girl for that, it kind of stings to know that no one will take hers as quickly, or even at all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>hyunjin scoffs. sooyoung has the decency to avoid her eyes, because she’s the bad guy here, and no amount of reasoning will clear her of her charges. if she were to say her version of the truth: that she was just trying to get a reaction out of jinsol</span>
  <em>
    <span>, </span>
  </em>
  <span>after days of not seeing her; it would only warrant an uncomfortable disbelief borderlining on a flippant dismissal of jinsol’s feelings, and hyunjin would probably sock her in the mouth – that would not end well. they’re a team, after all, and some semblance of cohesiveness is needed for their bond to show on camera.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>so sooyoung leaves. keeps her mouth shut, and retreats to the privacy of their bathroom, hoping that the sound of the running water would drown out the thoughts looping through her mind – all of them involving a certain girl she knows she does not deserve. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>jinsol gets an offer to sing an ost for a web drama. it turns out great, of course, and sooyoung watches quietly as jinsol comes out of her shell to practice runs that are so effortlessly fluid. this is the only time she will thank their company for the thin walls between studio rooms, because she hears every note crystal clear, and it fills her belly with a satisfaction she can’t seem to get from four servings of meat. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it’s beautiful. jinsol grows into her confidence, like how a sunflower blooms under the promising rays of the morning – bright and unsheltered, petals unfurling with so much grace and elegance that makes the air in sooyoung’s lungs disappear. because this is jung jinsol in her element – embodying emotions in every word that leaves her mouth in a melodic lilt, in the way that places the song on the billboard charts, like it was meant to.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>they make fun of jinsol, of course. it’s part of the team brand, and yerim takes the lead in the over-the-top belting of the chorus as soon as jinsol steps into the living room. someone pops a party popper for effect, and the smile that slowly stretches over jinsol’s face makes sooyoung’s own chest warm with something she never wants to forget. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>her eyes meet jinsol’s. unintentionally, of course. enough time has passed now for them to be civil, at least, in front of everyone else, in an attempt to not cause unnecessary drama – the less people know about it, the better – the genuine curve of jinsol’s eyes is enough to lift the weight lodged in sooyoung’s chest since that night, and sooyoung matches it easily with a smile of her own and the syncopated beats of her heart.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>this is how it should always be. because happiness looks so good on jinsol – her lips curving around a smile that banishes sooyoung’s own demons to the depths of hell, and her eyes promising cotton candy dreams sooyoung wants to see everyday.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but dreams are merely a testament to the intangible that always seem out of reach, and sooyoung reminds herself that she has to make peace with it, before her insides start to decay with a greed that would slowly eat her alive, and leave her heart to turn to dust eventually carried away by the winds of time.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>winter is shovelled snow and regret that seem to pile up every single day, no matter how much sooyoung tries to get rid of them. a physical reminder that she is powerless in the face of nature, and all things cosmic – the distinction between right and wrong, and the flow of a clear conscience that is morally assuming and osmotic. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but alas, she doesn’t give up. doesn’t stop trying. even when they do an outdoor winter shoot under the gentle snowfall, buried in scarves and mittens and coats that somehow don’t swallow them whole.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it’s jinsol’s turn. there are snowflakes sprinkled along the length of her hair. they sparkle in the afternoon sun, with every step she takes. she moves, natural and captivating, which should no longer be a surprise for any of them – they’ve all gotten so good at doing this, knowing how to show the best sides of themselves, and the sight of it makes sooyoung want to do something stupid. like kissing her cold reddened cheeks, or looping her own scarf around the other girl, tugging her in just because.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all, considering how she’s loitering around the filming set with the excuse of her being ready for her turn. and then she can thread her fingers through jinsol’s hair, and marvel at the softness of it and –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she shoves her hands into her pockets. clamps down on the urge, before she can try to remember what it felt like, and latch onto something that vaguely resembles hope. there can only be so many times she buys into the same shimmering illusion that whispers promises right at the tips of her fingers, but always, always slipping away. she’s sick of it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but then the director yells cut, and jinsol is done. she preens at the onslaught of compliments, back straighter and grin wider, thanking the staff, and walks towards – her? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“they said i did well today,” jinsol comes to a stop right in front of her, giddy and proud like she’s gotten full marks on a test. she’s smiling, lips stretched over years of doubt and opening with what sooyoung thinks is self-worth. but she sees the other girl wringing her fingers, the same way she does right before a big stage – again, something does not add up. sooyoung focuses. reads into jinsol as best as she can, because it’s not every day she gets what she wants offered up on a silver platter.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol’s foot starts tapping a rapid, mindless rhythm that makes her pulse race. it’s not a competition or anything, but having to withstand another second of jinsol looking expectantly at her will make her intestines knot, and –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she stops thinking.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“they’re right,” sooyoung says. takes jinsol’s hands in hers. they still immediately, fitting nicely under the uncertainty of everything around them. the tapping stops, and sooyoung knows she’s done the right thing. “you did really well, jinsol.” she beams. pours her heart into it. “i’m sure the photos will turn out great.” searches the other girl’s face for something. anything. she’s not exactly sure what she’s looking for.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol blinks. squeals. there’s a watercolour swirl in her eyes as she jumps, and then all the air is knocked out of sooyoung’s lungs as she finds herself being crushed in a hug. the ice cold tip of jinsol’s nose presses into the crook of sooyoung’s neck, and as her arms come up instinctively to hold the other girl in place and she breathes in what she will never have, sooyoung feels it:</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>something in her heart pulls. slowly, and then all at once – it </span>
  <em>
    <span>gives. </span>
  </em>
  <span>crumbles, after holding out for what sooyoung realises now is impossible, and that she’s so, so fucked. the dusty walls around it collapse, swallowed by honeyed longing, and she closes her eyes. surrenders completely to the onslaught of everything jinsol, which seems to pass through even the thickness of her long padding –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it’s never going to work. not when jinsol is still buzzing in her arms, looking at sooyoung like she’s a star within reach. the guilt catches up to her, constricting her chest with the rushing currents of her conscience – there is no way out of this, but to right her wrong, and to make peace with the missing pieces of herself jinsol has already stolen a long time ago.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“thank you,” the other girl mumbles into the space between them, quiet and slow. real.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung will never stop wanting this.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>the revelation sets her back by a hundred steps. whatever normalcy she thinks they have established seems to have disappeared, because sooyoung no longer knows how to be around jinsol, and she’s back to playing the avoiding game like her life depends on it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it’s barely midnight, but she’s already in bed and attempting to blank her mind at the familiar cracks in the ceiling of her room. the paint is mostly coming off, given how old the building is, but it does nothing to calm the torrential thoughts in her mind, in the way it used to.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she opens her fist. stares at the offending button sitting in the middle of her palm. it’s been awhile – it being her pointless reminiscence, an ever-slippery slope down things she’s long buried into the deepest recesses of her mind, sealed shut with a red cross to remind her rational self to never go through them again. but it’s apparently not enough, because some sickeningly masochistic part of herself rips the warning away and dives deep into the memories, pulling all of it out to the back of her eyelids like a reel stuck on loop:</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol, kissing her. jinsol, with her fingers digging into the sleeves of sooyoung’s hoodie. jinsol, lying underneath her, chest heaving, with her shirt rucked up and her newfound abs tightening with every graze of sooyoung’s fingers –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the other girl had actually done it – diligent pilates sessions almost every day, and stuck to her determination of building up her body. sooyoung should have known – the sharpening of jinsol’s jawline had to have a consequence that somehow hurts to know, now that she thinks about it: she doesn’t remember the last time jinsol had talked about ordering supper, or indulged in dinner as shamelessly as she used to.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but that’s besides the point. she knows the drill by now – sleep skirting just around her consciousness, as she wonders where it all went wrong, and the night will turn into morning as she counts enough sheep to clothe an entire village. however, she doesn’t get past two hundred today, because there’s a tiny knock on the door, and she sits up fast enough that her head almost crashes into the ceiling.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>chaewon doesn’t say anything. hyejoo is already fast asleep in the bunk below, and yeojin never comes in until at least three in the morning. it’s not like chaewon to be polite, though, when her eyes are sharper than usual – she gestures for sooyoung to follow, wordlessly, and so she does. her curiosity triumphs, no matter how the now stoic look on chaewon’s face foreshadows something unpleasant, and of course sooyoung knows that she isn’t obligated to go –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>well. she pads into the living room. it’s jinsol, asleep, curled up on the couch in the same blanket that was there that night. that has always been there since the day she’d moved in. they’re around the same height, but jinsol looks smaller than she’s ever been, frown etched deep on her forehead, and sooyoung puts another hesitant foot forward.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the lights are enough to illuminate the tears tracking jinsol’s cheeks, and the sight of them hits sooyoung right in the gut. it’s nothing close to the precursor she’d inferred from chaewon’s mostly untelling demeanor, but something underneath her chest twists, slithering its way through her ribs, and coils painfully around her heart. this. is it really…? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the words die on her lips. of course it is. the guilt multiplies tenfold, stuffy and suffocating, and sooyoung feels an ultimatum settle in between her collarbones – because this is all her fault, and she has to fix it, before jinsol wastes any more of her precious tears on someone like her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“hasn’t this gone on for too long?” chaewon’s voice is quiet. she means no harm, but it prickles at sooyoung’s skin anyway. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“i’ll fix it,” she verbalises her thoughts. it's a thousand times scarier saying it aloud, because chaewon will hold her to it, and maybe she’ll finally stop running away like the coward she’s learnt to be. because jinsol deserves more than a cracked heart and translucent tears that she will not remember in the morning, as though the empty bottle of soju on the table could be anything more than a numbing respite. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>sooyoung gets her chance during their shoot at jeju. doesn’t beg jungeun to rig the roommate draw so that she’ll end up with jinsol, but asks very nicely, and judging by the knowing look jungeun had given her together with the hotel keycards, sooyoung thinks she wasn’t as lowkey as she thought she was. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>they’d taken a late afternoon flight. the sky is already dark when they settle into their rooms, and sooyoung doesn’t think she’s up for anything other than a hot shower and mediocre room service, since they don’t start filming until the next day. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol keeps her distance. they eat in a silence that’s only filled by a shitty romcom playing on the tv, and sooyoung readies her speech. shoves her nerves down with a few beers. hops into the shower, and maxes out the hot water for an amplified buzz. this should be enough to shut down her flight instincts for the next hour or so, which have somehow been triggered with every thought of her impending word vomit – confrontation has always come easy to sooyoung; today, it eludes her, just when she needs it the most.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>none of it plays out like it should: sooyoung steps out of the steaming bathroom, skin tingling and mind foggy, just to find their room empty – jinsol is nowhere to be found. but there are several empty cans of beer on the bedside table that weren’t there before, a foreign brand she doesn’t recognise, and there’s a pair of hotel slippers right in front of the glass doors to the balcony, and okay. she can do this.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>the doors slide open easily. the cold air slices at her, sharpening some of her senses. they’re put up at a relatively high floor, so their view of the ocean is illuminated by the hotel lights, and it’s enough to get her to forget the pressure sitting on her chest for a little while. jeju is a sight for sore eyes, and sooyoung feels her body loosen. but as the stress seeps out from her shoulders and the clean air attempts to repurpose her take on life, something else comes to attention – small and insignificant on her busiest days, but right here, now: a twinge of homesickness that digs into the spaces between her ribs, and dulls the magnificent view.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>she moves to the railings. thinks about the sacrifices she’s made: rushed phone calls to her mother in between schedules, the occasional conversation with her grandmother, glimpses of haneul through moments she can only witness through pictures – they don’t hold a candle to the feeling of his ears twitching under her fingers whenever she calls his name, or his excited pants whenever they play fetch, or his steady breaths when he would fall asleep on her stomach more often than not – the things that have already slipped through the spaces between her fingers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>then there’s jinsol – standing to her left and looking at the ocean like it owes her something. her eyes are distant, faraway, and sooyoung wonders what she sees. does the horizon hold something that she, too, wants? has it taken away as much as it has from her? will she ever stop chasing for it, when time proves too much to follow?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>and then, herself, a fleeting thought that roots her to the ground: will she, too, be one of the many things jinsol would give up on eventually, and reminisce about only on her loneliest nights?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“sooyoung,” jinsol calls, quiet in the night. still, it’s loud enough to silence the voices in her head, and sooyoung blinks. the words on her tongue she’s spent the last two days fretting over dissolve into bitter ashes she swallows begrudgingly, and she steps closer.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol hasn’t wiped off her makeup. the glitter on her eyelids makes the black of her eyes even glossier, and sooyoung feels herself being pulled in, again. holds onto the balcony railing for a semblance of sanity. it shouldn’t be this easy. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“look,” jinsol gestures to the ocean. “it’s beautiful.” the gentle sea breeze brushes her hair away from her shoulders. the glow from the hotel lights reflecting off the water embeds itself into the corners of her eyes, all silvery and dewy, and if sooyoung were drunk, they might have looked like tears waiting to fall.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“it is.” sooyoung’s eyes don't leave jinsol. they stay transfixed, for awhile, with sooyoung tethered closely enough to see the nuances in every ripple of emotion across her face – there isn’t much, now, other than a slow melancholy that makes the lines of her eyes wearier than they should be. it flickers between familiarity – the deep hard set of her mouth resigned to a silence sooyoung is no longer a stranger to – and how the corners of it lift minutely in an undercurrent of something sooyoung wishes she wasn’t blindsided to.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol turns to her. steps into her space, meeting her stare head-on. “sooyoung,” she says, again. it’s soft against the rattling of sooyoung’s heart, her name barely a whisper caressing the curve of her ear. “will you tell me what happened that night?”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>alcohol makes jinsol bold. sooyoung wishes she had drunk more – jinsol is unpredictable without inhibitions, and every move she makes keeps sooyoung at the tip of her toes. it’s difficult to match the other girl’s pace, when there are invisible lines drawn almost everywhere, and sooyoung’s not even sure if she’s at liberty to cross any of them; even if she wants to, it would be as good as navigating in the dark, with nothing but her gut – just one wrong step and she could lose everything. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>her hesitation doesn’t go unnoticed. when sooyoung doesn’t say anything, jinsol reaches out, fingers cradling her jaw, holding her in place, and – </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“please?” her voice cracks. a lone tear leaves her left eye, its trail down jinsol’s cheek a journey sooyoung longs to follow. she thinks she is drunk. weighs the consequences. it sends her into high alert, as she scrambles to remember what she came here for, and everything else is suddenly meaningless in comparison to the shimmering desperation reflected in jinsol’s eyes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“i –” sooyoung takes a shaky breath. makes her decision. all or nothing. closes her hand over jinsol’s, coaxing her fingers away from her jaw, and in between them. “we – you were drunk. you kissed me, and i liked it. more than i should.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>there it is, her truth laid bare in front of her, as she waits for her judgement by the moonlight – the disgust, the lashing out, the irreversible fractures that would eventually cascade across their already strained relationship. but there’s none of that, again, because jung jinsol is unpredictable, and there’s only a small tilt of her head as she blinks languidly. “you did?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung clears her throat. “yeah.” looks away. the shame creeping up her cheeks leaves no room for anything else, like noticing the straightening of jinsol’s shoulders, or the way her eyes suddenly dim. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“i thought you hated me.” jinsol mumbles, pressing closer. sooyoung feels the words said at the base of her throat, every waver an ember to her frazzling nerves. but the other girl’s words sink in slowly, an understanding that seeps through her skin and goes straight to her eyebrows –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“no. i could never.” she shakes her head. squeezes jinsol’s hands. her voice is louder. stronger, now, with courage she never knew she had. “i’m sorry i made you think that. i’m sorry, for a lot of things.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>time is relative, sooyoung learns, when you don’t know what you’re waiting for. her wrong is right, now, to follow what she thinks it should have been from the very beginning. but the guillotine still doesn’t drop, and her hands tremble from the anxiety that builds with every second that passes, because everything could still go wrong. there are so many variables she cannot account for, given the intricate complexity of everything jung jinsol – a moving uncertainty that fluctuates with the smallest of change, despite sooyoung’s almost four-year analysis. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“it’s okay,” jinsol says, an airy forgiveness that settles along the edges of her ribs. it moves, a gradual tranquility that spreads all the way to the ridges of her fingers, and sooyoung finally, finally breathes easy. but it’s vague at best, because what exactly is jinsol referring to? does she mean </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s okay, i don’t hate you? </span>
  </em>
  <span>or </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s okay, i’m not angry, </span>
  </em>
  <span>or </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s okay to like it more than you should because i liked it too? </span>
  </em>
  <span>“i just wished i remembered it.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>something clicks. shifts into place, and the force of it pushes sooyoung backwards. she pulls away in disbelief, as her brain works overtime to make sense of what she thinks is happening. there is clarity in jinsol’s eyes, in the same way sooyoung thinks her guard lowers with every second jinsol’s hand is still clamped over hers. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“do you want to?” she pushes through the boundaries, in a courageous leap of faith. lets her eyes flicker downwards. jinsol’s lips are pink and pretty, and sooyoung’s throat dries. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>jinsol kisses her, light and soft. exactly like how sooyoung remembers it. it’s brief, and the fleeting warmth she chases makes her open her eyes – jinsol is here, in her arms, just like she was all those nights ago. but tonight, there is none of that hesitance that previously weighed her movements, and sooyoung knows what she has to do –</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she crosses the lines. daring. they aren’t there anymore. jinsol must have erased them all sometime between the first tug of her bottom lip and the breathy gasp leaving her mouth that sounds too good to be true – only it is. all of it, in the palm of her still shaking hands, as the gravity of jung jinsol makes her smile like it always has.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“it’s okay,” jinsol whispers into her mouth, and sooyoung believes it. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>/</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>spring brings about a serenity that stays despite their hectic schedules. there is a positivity that comes hand-in-hand with the increasingly greening leaves, vibrant and bright, and the flowers that bloom a second chance sooyoung promises not to forsake. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>her footsteps are lighter these days, according to chaewon, who is nice enough to not probe at the changing dynamic between her and jinsol. on some days, she gets a knowing smile from across the hallway, when the other girl leaves her designated seat on the couch at an hour that’s clearly way too early for bedtime – sooyoung is grateful, and the flush adorning jinsol’s cheeks makes her heart swell.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>sooyoung thinks she’s done pretty well when hyunjin comes up to her one day offering half a sandwich. the same hyunjin, who never shares food – it’s more than enough of an apology, she supposes, and takes it. new beginnings are easier when there are no regrets left behind, and she embraces it all with open arms. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>things pass, slow and steady, and sooyoung learns what a constant is. these days, it’s the hand in hers that pulls her deeper into untreaded waters, where her feet don’t touch the floor. it’s still terrifying, sometimes, when she feels prying eyes staring a little too long, or when she thinks about the years to come that hold nothing concrete. but jinsol is always quick to notice, and reassures her with the present – after all, it is what they have, and what they can control – everything else isn’t. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>so when jinsol rests her head between sooyoung’s shoulder blades, in the middle of the airport, where the flashes of the paparazzi would have made her rigid and stiff, sooyoung feels her body relaxing. she’s not alone. it’s subtle, but there is more to the weight jinsol lets sooyoung support – an obvious presence, and then a quiet undertone of how much jinsol trusts sooyoung to carry her burdens and insecurities on the days where she cannot do it herself. it is an honour sooyoung swears to commit to, until the day the universe decides she can no longer – but she won’t think about that. not yet, at least. not today.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>she reaches out. pats jinsol’s arm. then leaves it there, keeping her close as they move forward in the queue to enter the departure hall, and hopes that jinsol will know everything she doesn’t say.</span>
</p><p><br/>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>yves: nowadays jinsol...my lover</p><p>also @xylomyloo on twitter and cc :&gt;</p></blockquote></div></div>
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